Promenade
by An Fhomhair
Summary: [RENT oneshot] Collins shows up at the loft after a 4 month absence, and he and Roger take a little stroll down the street during which they talk about love, death & life, and maybe cry a bit.


**Disclaimer: Jeg eier ikk 'RENT' eller de skjonne karaktrene, og om De tror at jeg gjor, De er dum! Bwahahahaha.**

**A/N: I did my disclaimer in Norwegian this time...because I'm sooo special.:laughs maniacally:. _Special. _.:clears throat:. Okay, umm, on a more on-topic note: I had a weird inspiration to write this last night...so I did...yeah. (Didn't think you could figure that out, y'know.) I'm not sure if it turned out quite as I wanted to...but I hope it's better than 'Wishful Thinking', which I thought was overly cliche. Ok, just read it.**

Promenade

May twentieth. I'm sitting on my bed, Mark's filming, Mimi's asleep; she sleeps a lot lately. This songwriting business really sucks sometimes…like when you think you've got something great, and then you realise it's crap… I sigh and gently set the guitar down. Even if the frustration of wanting to find a tune and not being able to will linger over my mind, it's better than sitting, looking like an idiot while I pick at a Fender guitar hopelessly.

_Rrring. _The phone. Mark looks over at me, as if to say; you want it? I see Mimi's head of dark curls move slightly under the blanket on the couch. I shrug, go over, and pick it up. "What?"

"Roger!" Mark reprimands me from his position on the floor. "You're supposed to say hello, not-"

I hear a familiar laugh on the line; a laugh that I haven't heard for a while. "Collins! Where are you?" Collins has been having it tough since Angel died. He's constantly bouncing around from job to job; I guess it's hard for him to concentrate on work while his life has gotten all the meaning sucked out of it. Poor guy.

"Hey, tell Mark it's okay that you said 'what'. It's all the same to me." He replies. I can hear the amusement in his voice. "I'm downstairs."

"Downstairs…back at that telephone booth where…"

"I got mugged…" Collins fills in the sentence.

"And met…" I don't exactly feel like saying Angel's name. Like I said, Collins is still taking it bad. I don't want to hurt him any more than life does on its own.

"Yeah..." Says Collins. I can hear the amusement change to pain. "Yeah." He says again. "But, I'm downstairs. You mind if I come up?"

"Yeah, Tom, I mind a lot." I reply sarcastically. "You aren't allowed to come up to the loft…you know, even though we've known you from way-back-when…"

"Aw, shut up, I'm coming up to see you guys." _Click. _Grinning, I flop back in to the chair. "Collins is here, Cohen." Mark rolls his eyes at me.

"I figured." He hunches over his screenplays and tapes, spread out all over the floor of the loft. I shake my head; Mark, for all his geekiness, is always hilarious when he works. You can yell in his ear and he won't listen; but if you answer the phone the wrong way, he gets on your back for it. Typical. I pick up the guitar again, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door, to which I spring up to answer it.

"Wow, you haven't been that energetic since last time you got drunk!" Mark remarks absently. I ignore him and pull the door open; we haven't seen Collins since January, when he went off to try and find a job somewhere that wouldn't remind him of his lover.

"Hey." Collins smiles at me. He definitely looks older, but he's still the same. We high five, and he goes over to greet Mark. "Mark Cohen…immersed in his filming, as usual-no wonder." He smirks at Mark, who looks up and merely grins, knowing it's all in fun.

"Mark's in love with his work!" I mock the cameraman. "That is, if he's gotten over Mo yet…"

"Shut up, Rog. Just because you can't write a stupid song well-"

"Hey!" Mimi calls from the couch, elevating herself a bit. "I like his stupid song, Marky! I bet you wish you could write a stupid song as well as Roger, right, honey?" She gives me her cute grin.

"Yeah. Marky is jealous, Marky is jealous…" I chant, epitomizing immature- and knowingly. Mark sticks out his tongue at both of us and sticks his nose back into a pile of papers. Collins just watches us and laughs, then continues over to Mimi and gives her a kiss on the cheek. Mimi's poor thin face breaks into a grin, and a lump comes to my throat. She's sweet.

"So…" Mark says to Collins. "Are you just floating around town, or here for anything in particular…? NYU, maybe?"

Collins shakes his head. "Nah. Just breezing through, so I decided to come see you guys." He shrugged. "Anybody care to go for a walk or something? I'm in the artsy/philosophical mood, if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean." I grin. "I'll go on a walk with you. I haven't been out of this hellhole in two days."

"If it's a hellhole, babe, it's all thanks to you!" Mimi calls from the sofa. "Collins, you should've heard the way he yelled at poor Marky the other day…"

"Don't worry, I've heard it plenty of times." Collins assures her. "So…Mr. Davis is up for a walk…Meems? Mark?"

Mark shakes his blonde head. "Sorry. I've got a project to work on here." He motions at the scattered objects littering the floor and does a sort of half-grin. Collins looks at Mimi, who also declines. She hasn't been doing very well lately, anyways. Collins offers me an arm and, waving, we head out the door.

"I feel incredibly homosexual right now." I remark, amused at the passerby who stare at two grown men linking arms as they walk down the street.

"Really? That's funny. I always feel kinda homosexual." Collins jokes. We continue down the street. Oddly enough, just taking a walk in the spring air is refreshing. I almost feel like I'm a normal person whose immune system doesn't need help from AZT. I can tell Collins is feeling the same way, just from the look on his face. But I also know he can't completely feel whole, because of Angel…God, it'll be amazing if we ever let go of Angel. I think Collins knows what I'm thinking about. "What's up?" he says, in a tone that tells me he's serious. I try to joke anyways, though.

"The sky!" Collins laughs, but looks at me with a kind of I-can-see-through-you look.

"There's something wrong, Roger Davis. For as long as I've known you, I always could tell when you were feeling down." He replies. I bite my lip, wanting to hole myself up and keep my feelings in, because that's what I'm used to doing- but my other side tells me to just pour out my feelings to him, because he'll understand as well as anybody.

"Sorry if I sound stupid;" I apologise in advance, "But -I suppose you guessed- it's Mimi. She's…" I remember Mark's words from Halloween last year. 'Mimi's gotten thin, Mimi's running out of time…' "She's fading. You know." I felt my throat tighten, and Collins nodded. I went on. "We're all fading, Collins. It's like…as soon as Angel died, we all started to go. Like a domino effect or something. Because, before he…she…died, we all knew it was going to end someday, but we weren't thinking about it that way. Then she died and it all sort of became like 'okay, we're dying, fuck life'." Having delivered myself of this. I sigh.

"Go on." We continue to walk down the sidewalk.

I lick my lips and continued. Might as well say everything I'd been thinking about in one go. "So, after we're all…you know, gone, where's Marky going to be? Sure, he'll have Maureen and Joanne, but I just worry about him. I don't care about myself anymore. I know my life isn't going to last much longer," (saying that hurt, but I knew it was true) "And I don't know if my life's made a difference in anyone besides…well, you, Mark, Mo, and Joanne. But Mark…he'll have no-one left. That's the only reason that I don't want to die- I don't want to leave him all alone. He's my best friend." I bow my head. "After losing Angel, we were all devastated. So how about if he loses all of us?"

Throughout this whole revelation, I've been talking more to myself, or to God, than to Collins. I know, consciously, who I'm really talking to, but since Collins is a pretty damn good listener, he could make me forget I was talking to anyone in particular. That's one of the nice things about talking to Collins. But then I turn towards him again- just to make sure he's listening, you know. Collins' head was bent and I know he's crying.

"Oh, God, Collins…I'm sorry…" I mumble, awkwardly putting my arm around his shoulder. I don't really care if people were staring at us, not now. I just feel awful. I sure hadn't meant to make the poor guy cry; I should have known not to say too much about Angel. I bite my lip again and just put my arms around him. We just stand there, hugging, for a minute, because it's like the minute we let go, we're letting go of it all.

Once we've started walking again, Collins whispers, "Thanks." I nod, and swallow, trying to get the lump of grief out of my throat. "I'm sorry for breaking down." He adds. "You're...strong, not to cry over everything. I still cry every night." He admits, looking half-ashamed and grieved.

"That's okay," I whisper back, my voice cracking. "The only reason I didn't cry was because I finished all that last night, when I was thinking about all of this- us dying, Mark being left behind, Mimi dying…all of it." I look away, look over the skyline, into the setting sun. The sunset is brilliant, shedding a radiant orange glow over the city. It's been a while since I watched the sunset. We finish our walk in silence, because both of us know what the other feels. It's a mutual respect for emotion; another thing Collins is pretty good at.

"Oh, look," says Collins, sounding distracted, "We're back already. Time flies when you're having fun." He manages to make a broken smile.

"Or an emotional talk." I say, smiling back, as we head up the stairs and knock on the door of the loft. Mark knows I only knock because it's cute when he peeks out the door to see who it is. But it's not Mark who gets to the door this time, instead it's Mimi. She smiles at me and we kiss.

"Wow, you were out a while." Remarks Mark, looking up. "Hey, Collins, are you okay? Your eyes are red…"

Collins looks surprised for a minute. Then he replies, "Uh…I'm okay, Mark! Must be some, er, pollen in the air." He catches my eye and we both grin.

Poor Marky. He's got no idea…

finis

**Yet another A/N: By the way, 'promenade' means something about taking a walk in French...I was supposed to have learned that, but I can't really remember. Hehe. :3 ****Yeah. Just for your reference.**

**Ep**


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